The Power of the Telling

Well, I have finally completed reading the Yog Vasistha. In the telling, the sage Vasishtha sits with Rama in the royal court and explains to him the nature of reality. All of the many present are enlightened. Due to the request of the sage Baradwaja, Brahma grants Valmiki’s telling of the story the same power.

As I note in the first article on the book (3 years ago!) the story is told by one sage to another about a royal sages conversation with Valmiki who in turn tells the story of the discourse itself. So it’s a story about a story about the story. And the story is told with the use of stories. 😉

To paraphrase a late page, an intelligent conscious man appears to be insentient when he sleeps; even so does the infinite consciousness appear to be insentient objects. The infinite consciousness later becomes sentient objects, just as the sleeping man begins to dream. This continues until liberation and the realization that the world is a long dream of the divine.